Life With Lord Jim

Is New Jersey's Jim Kelly pro football's best quarterback? He could be, and there's little doubt that he is having the most fun

By Rick Telander

Issue date: July 21, 1986

Jim Kelly, the best quarterback nobody has ever seen play, throws a dart at Ben Bennett's head.

The motion is smooth and graceful. It's a dart-throwing motion, of course, but it displays a suppleness of arm and shoulder and a certain panache that one senses translates well to rifling a football 50 yards downfield under heavy blitz.

Joe and Alice Kelly, Jim's parents, sit on the living room couch watching TV with Toni, Jim's aunt. Kevin and Ed Kelly, two of Jim's five brothers, sit on the floor. Ed (Uncle Ed) McGinn stands bare-chested behind the bar and pulls himself a beer. He's not far from the wall poster of a glistening, naked woman curling a chrome dumbbell and the LeRoy Neiman original of Joe Namath in his Jets uniform and the “Irishman's Philosophy” poster, which advises folks to forget about dying and to party while they're alive.

Uncle Ed is huge. He is Alice Kelly's brother and shows clearly where the Kelly boys -- all of whom are more than six feet tall and 200 pounds -- got their size. Uncle Ed's also funny (“We took him to this comedy place called the Laugh Stop last night, and when we left they gave him a standing ovation,” says Jim). And tough. He works for Edgewater Steel in Pittsburgh. Once he got hit in the face by a crane hook that caved in his sinus cavity -- but it didn't bring him to his knees.

All the Kellys of tiny East Brady, Pa., are tough. So is Bennett, the former Duke quarterback, who lives in this suburban Houston home with Jim and three of Jim's brothers. But he's not stupid. He pulls his face away from the dart board a microsecond before Kelly's dart buries itself in the cork.

“Bennett, you sick little worm,” says Kelly, handing the darts to his friend.

Bennett, who played for the Atlanta Falcons in 1985 and is now attempting a comeback with the Houston Oilers, takes aim as Kelly sticks his own face in and out of the line of fire.

“It's fair to harass the thrower when he's going for bull's-eyes,” Bennett explains.

There is a knock at the door and Larry Moriarty, the Oiler fullback, walks in.

“Replenish your fluids?” says Uncle Ed, a smile on his face.

When you enter a Kelly gathering you are absorbed into the family, and the bonding agent is beer. The steins wielded by Uncle Ed are gigantic, and he hands them out the way an usher distributes playbills. The scene in Jim Kelly's home is noteworthy because in America today the family is about as sacred as beef fat. Oh, we give it plenty of lip service, we like the idea of it, but the Kellys believe in it. They are tighter than the Cleavers. They get together for any reason. Two other brothers would be here, but one's wife is having a baby back in Virginia, where the brothers live. One of them, Pat, played linebacker for the Colts and Detroit Lions.

And it's not as though everybody lives down the block. Jim flies family members back and forth from Pennsylvania or wherever, picks up all tabs, buys all provisions. This is just a little weekend gig. Sometimes they fly to Hawaii. Houston happens to be the spot now because Kelly played two years for the USFL's Houston Gamblers. The Gamblers no longer exist, however, having thrown their cards in with the New Jersey Generals last February. So Kelly is now a General, which means almost nothing until the USFL's suit against the NFL is resolved and it is determined who shall live, who shall die and who might merge. But the family goes on. “It's where all his strength comes from,” says Jerry Argovitz, the Generals president of the moment and a former owner of the Gamblers. “The Kelly family is like a fairy tale,” says Bennett, “and the brothers are like a street gang.”

Jim concedes the dart match to Bennett, who, he says, “is a freeloader who showed up two weeks ago and never left.” Bennett sleeps in the den of this plush five-bedroom, seven-bath house. Each brother who lives here has a domestic job -- Ed cooks, Kevin cleans, Danny pays the bills. Jim, who earns $800,000 a year, provides most of the money, even though the other brothers do work. And Bennett? “We keep him around just to beat him at everything,” says Kelly.

As he walks past his mother now, he pats her shoulder. She smokes, and Jim used to rag her so hard about it that she would cry. “Then I thought about raising six boys like us and what that's got to do to you, and I laid off,” he says. His nagging may have helped, though, because his mother gave up smoking June 30. The Kellys were dirt poor when the boys were growing up, and they all remember the bad times. Joe, a machinist, chose his fourth- oldest son to lead the way to nobler things.

And he has. “In 1983, the year of the quarterback, we had him rated just behind John Elway, who was the first pick in the first round,” says Bill Tobin, the Bears' player personnel director. “We had him rated ahead of Todd Blackledge, who was taken in front of him, and ahead of Tony Eason and Ken O'Brien and, yes, Dan Marino. And I haven't seen anything to change my opinion.”

Joe Kelly was never surprised by what Jim has turned out to be.

“Why did you push me so hard?” Jim asks his father.

“Because I saw what an arm you had in Little League,” Joe says. “I had a dream you'd play pro football.”

“Did you dream I'd be a maid?” asks Kevin.

People laugh.

“Put a collar on that for ya?” says Uncle Ed, pointing to a visitor's half-empty mug.

A crowd of 18,828 allegedly saw Jim Kelly beat the Los Angeles Express 34-33 at the L.A. Coliseum on Feb. 24, 1985. The USFL belongs to the school of creative attendance-counting, wherein seat backs often become human beings -- but whoever or whatever watched Kelly in the fourth quarter that day got a treat. With the Gamblers down 33-13 and about nine minutes left in the game, Kelly threw touchdown passes of 52, 40 and 39 yards in a total of 12 offensive plays consuming just 208 seconds. The empty stadium echoed with silence. But it was a performance that transcended the boundaries of a lousy league. Even if the Express had tombstones for defensive backs, it was some display. “I didn't even think we'd get the ball three times,” says Gamblers-Generals offensive coordinator John Jenkins. For the game Kelly completed 35 of 54 passes for 574 yards and 5 TDs. It was a good day for him, but not unexpected.

In 1984, his first season in the USFL, Kelly threw for 5,219 yards and 44 touchdowns, more in each category than any rookie in any league. Until Dan Marino threw 48 TD passes later that year, no one at all had ever connected on more scoring strikes in a season than Kelly. In 1985 he missed the last four regular-season games with a knee injury but still finished with 4,623 passing yards and 39 touchdowns. In both years Kelly led the USFL in passing yards, TDs and completion percentage. In 1984 he was voted the MVP of the league. His highlights that year included at least one touchdown pass thrown in all 18 games, five consecutive 300-yard passing games and 20 completions in 23 attempts for 362 yards against the Jacksonville Bulls. No quarterback in any league has thrown for more yards or touchdowns in his first two years than Kelly has.

Each of the few people who have watched Kelly in the USFL has a favorite highlight to trot out: the five-touchdown job Kelly had against the Pittsburgh Maulers in 1984; the four-game stretch at the start of the 1985 season, in which he averaged 418 yards and four TDs passing per game; the 1985 streak of 120 passes without an interception.

“I liked the San Antonio game at the Astrodome when we had the ball on our own seven-yard line with 46 seconds left, trailing by five,” says Argovitz. “'O.K., guys,' T.F. says in the huddle. 'We got 'em right where we want 'em.' Boom. Two passes. Touchdown. We win 28-26.”

T.F.?

“The Franchise,” says Argovitz. “That's what I call him.”

At 6 ft. 3 in., 215 pounds, with large hands and muscular legs, Kelly is packaged just the way NFL scouts like 'em. That he got away from the big league was mostly a function of USFL bidding madness and the surgery on Kelly's right (throwing) shoulder that forced him to miss the last eight games of his senior season at the University of Miami. Argovitz was concerned about his recovery, and he flew Kelly to Houston for a personal appraisal. The two went to a city park where Argovitz, a former quarterback at Borger (Texas) High School, played receiver. When Argovitz asked for some velocity, Kelly threw a ball that dislocated the executive's right ring finger. Arm question answered.

There has never been any doubt about Kelly's athletic skills. As a 10- year-old he came close to winning the national Punt, Pass and Kick competition. At East Brady High he starred in basketball and was so good in football that his team was undefeated from the middle of his sophomore year until he graduated.

“By Jim's senior year we were usually ahead of everybody 30-0 at halftime, so he didn't play much,” says former East Brady head coach Terry Henry. “Normally, the only incompletions he had were drops. I remember one game when he was 14 of 16 with two passes that bounced off kids' hands. He could be an NFL punter. His senior year at East Brady he was the all- conference punter, placekicker, safety, quarterback and league player of the year.”

In spite of being a western Pennsylvania hotshot, Kelly didn't particularly care about going to Pitt. Penn State, however, would have been the perfect choice, but the Lions wanted him as a linebacker. Joe Paterno is sick of hearing about it. J.T. White, the now retired State assistant coach who bird- dogged Kelly, says wanly, “He would've been a good linebacker, too.” And Dwight Gooden could probably play first base. In his first college start Kelly visited University Park and said hello to the heavily favored Lions by whipping them 26-10.

“Jim has never been afraid to take chances,” says Henry. “Going far away to Miami, to a losing program that was a risk. And he got them going.”

“For a new league Kelly is the kind of guy you want,” says Argovitz. “He's like Namath -- working class, talented, antiestablishment.”

Argovitz brings up the Namath portrait in Kelly's home. “LeRoy, one of these days you're going to come to us asking to do Jim Kelly,” Argovitz once said.

“I knew I wouldn't get the recognition in the USFL that I would in the NFL, but I joined to make some money and have fun, and I've done both,” says Kelly, who remains the Buffalo Bills' property in the NFL, after being a first-round draft pick in 1983.

All scrubbed and powdered, the boys arrive at Rick's Cabaret in Houston to see the girls. And the girls are everywhere, in bathing suits and negligees and outfits made of less fabric than goes into most neckties. A raucous, upscale strip joint with flying confetti and $75 bottles of champagne, Rick's is what happens when yuppies try to one-up the conventions attended by their dads.

Kelly, his two brothers and Moriarty and Bennett sit at a table by a palm tree. In a moment a young lady approaches one of the Kelly brothers and does a dance routine so close to him that his eyes can't focus. This is the renowned table dance, $25 a shot, and before long Kelly has purchased one of these adventures for everybody in the group.

Kelly himself needs no help with women. They just seem to melt in front of him.

“I am here from the Guinness Book of World Records to verify that Jim Kelly has stolen more ladies' hearts than anyone in the history of civilization,” says Bennett. “And I can't explain it. I mean, I'm not going to say he's ugly, but he's no Tom Selleck, either. And he can't sweet- talk like Don Juan. And the sickest thing is, a lot of girls who swoon don't even know he's a great quarterback and incredibly rich.”

One former flame, Mary Ellen George of the Dallas Cowboys travel department, says that Kelly's allure springs from “his values and background.” She says that women love men who love their families and don't change when things around them change. “He appeals because he's sensitive, believe it or not.” So does she see him anymore? “I can't keep up with him,” she sighs. “As you said, he's very popular with women.”

The thing here is that Jim Kelly, 26 (motto: “I'm single, very single”), could have the NFL, or at least the media that covers it, in the palm of his hand -- particularly if the Generals wind up with the NFL or stay in the gossip-crazed New York area and succeed in the USFL. Who was the last great bachelor quarterback in the league? Marino married his hometown sweetheart last year. McMahon is married and has two children. Montana has been married three times. It always comes back to Namath, and Broadway Joe hasn't played in New York for a decade. There is a great tabloid void waiting to be filled.

“America is in for a treat,” proclaims Argovitz, sounding more than a little like Namath's advance man, the legendary Sonny Werblin.

The following morning a car pulls up in front of Kelly's house. The door opens and Kelly steps out, and a pretty young woman drives off. Kelly says hi to his dad and Uncle Ed and brother Ed, who is washing his car. Dad has already pumped iron this morning in Kelly's weight room, the same room with Kelly's 200-plus hat collection. Dad and Uncle Ed chuckle as Jim heads for the house.

The antitrust trial in New York has left things up in the air. “The handcuffs are on. I can't say anything. Nothing,” says Bills general manager Bill Polian when asked what his team's plans might be for signing Kelly if the USFL loses its case against the NFL and folds its tent. Rumor has it that the Los Angeles Raiders are trying to work a deal with the Bills to obtain Kelly's rights. “With that defense and the talent they have on offense, he'd be perfect for the Raiders,” says Bears quarterback Jim McMahon. Who wouldn't be prefect on the Raiders? “Marc Wilson,” says McMahon.

“I'd like to play for the Raiders. I'd like to live in California,” Kelly says. “But what I'd really like to do is play for the New Jersey Generals and Donald Trump and merge with the NFL and take the run-and-shoot with Herschel Walker in the backfield and just kick ass.”

“If we win, we will have more money than the NFL, and that will be interesting,” says Trump. “We already have teams that would beat most NFL teams.” Maybe, maybe not. Jim Mora, the former coach of the USFL champion Baltimore Stars and now head coach of the New Orleans Saints of the NFL, testified recently at the trial that the Stars were not as good as the Saints, who finished 5-11 in 1985.

Kelly himself says he might play for the Bills if the USFL folds, if they pay him a lot, or he might sit out the 1986 season and become a free agent next year and go where he pleases for a trillion dollars. “Buffalo needs more than me, more than a quarterback,” he says. “I'd get the tar beat out of me, and it would shorten my career.”

If the USFL somehow plays its regularly scheduled fall season, Kelly will start for the Generals against the Memphis Showboats on Sept. 14.

He puts it all out of his mind as he and his family arrive at a cattle ranch 75 miles west of Houston. The ranch belongs to a friend of Argovitz's, and while ribs cook on the giant grill the president himself runs patterns for his star employee. As Kelly tosses passes over trees and through branches, there is no other way to describe his bearing except with the word cocky.

It's an adjective everyone eventually uses when discussing Kelly. Howard Schnellenberger, who coached Jim at Miami and Namath at Alabama, refines the label even further. “Joe was streetcorner cocky,” he says. “Jim is rural cocky. At Miami all the players called him Country -- Country Jim Kelly.” Terry Henry says that as a sophomore in high school Kelly was “the smartest, cockiest thing you can imagine.” The coach remembers the time he took members of the East Brady team in a van to scout another high school game, and Kelly almost started a riot by mouthing off. “We had cars chasing us home,” says Henry. “Generally, though, Jim can talk his way out of anything.”

“Jim just believes he owns the field,” says Bennett. “It's corny, but there is an aura about him, kind of an innocence. People are intimidated by him because he's so competitive. I've watched a lot of his films, and I remember the first game of his rookie year, against Tampa Bay. The defense just (did a job) on him. But no matter what, he was still slinging. They say quarterbacks aren't supposed to think about getting pounded, but you do. Nobody can take a beating week after week and keep coming back. But Jim does. Hey, I'd never tell him how good he is.”

“Cocky?” says Argovitz, sweating during a break. “Cocky is only when you can't back it up.”

What Kelly is, says Argovitz, is confident and tough. He mentions last year's Gamblers-Generals game, in which Kelly injured his knee and then dislocated the ring finger on his throwing hand. The finger was pointed straight sideways and Kelly went into the locker room to get it treated. Kelly got the finger straightened and then tested it by playing catch with his brothers Ray and Pat, who had come down from the stands. “I'm going back in,” Kelly said. He returned to the game and promptly threw a touchdown pass.

“I'll tell you who's cocky,” says Kelly. “My receivers. They talk more trash than any people in the universe. I'd throw a touchdown pass to one and the others would come back to the huddle screaming, 'Man, I was open.'” Kelly's receivers are called the Mouseketeers because they are tiny and fast and because their offensive coordinator with the Gamblers was Mouse Davis, the father of the run-and-shoot offense.

The Mouseketeers ran patterns at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands Sports Complex in the first on-field meeting of the combined team this spring. As they moved about, they talked unmitigated trash.

“I'm Skeets House-Call Verdin,” says 5 ft. 8 in., 160-pound Clarence Verdin, who caught 84 passes for Houston last season. “At night I'm Billy Dee. I got a Mr. T starter set. Look out.”

“Did you see the exhibition out there? Did you?” says slotback Richard Johnson, who caught 103 passes in 1985.

Kelly whips all eight or so of these wise guys into line during games. The run-and-shoot basically is a system that requires the quarterback to sprint out, read the defense on the move and quickly hit any of his very mobile receivers before the secondary can adjust. There is no tight end in the run- and-shoot, no fullback and only one running back. When it's humming, the offense is almost impossible to stop. But it requires intense concentration by the receivers and everyone's total belief in the quarterback, who must make instantaneous observations and often throw from an awkward position. It also requires the semblance of a running attack to keep defenses honest, something head coach Jack Pardee feels he has now with the addition of Herschel Walker, the USFL's leading rusher. “With my receivers and Herschel we could score 35 points on the Chicago Bears. No question,” says Kelly.

Doug Flutie, the Generals starting quarterback before Kelly arrived, says that he loves the offense. “I wish I'd had a couple years of this,” he says. He and Kelly and former Gambler backup Todd Dillon take turns running plays. Flutie doesn't have much of a chance in this derby, because the entire offensive coaching staff, offensive playbook and receiving corps came from Houston. Then, too, Kelly dwarfs Flutie both physically and verbally.

“It doesn't hurt me to be starting new like this,” Flutie insists. “Jim treats me good. There's no problem. I think we'll coexist.”

A few days later Flutie looks a little less sanguine. That morning an article has come out in the New York Daily News with the headline KELLY WARNS FLUTIE. In it Kelly states that Flutie will have to scramble just to beat out Dillon as a backup, that Flutie “can win Heismans and everything and still wind up third string.”

“Did you see that?” asks Flutie, shocked. “If you say something in the press, you better back it up. Especially in New York. Jim's new here.”

So what did Flutie really think of Kelly last year, when the two quarterbacks were on different teams, opponents trying to beat one another?

“The truth? I thought he was a cocky s.o.b. Our guys hit him some late shots out-of-bounds and he just got right back up, talking ----.”

“I'm not sure he knows what his words are going to look like in black and white,” says Paul Needell, the Daily News football writer who interviewed Kelly for the story.

In the Generals' locker room Kelly shakes his head. “Hey, I didn't know it would be like that,” he says of the newspaper story. “He just asked me if I thought Doug could be third string and I said, 'Sure.'”

Later, thinking about Kelly, Flutie smiles. “He's happy, having a good time. We're all just kids. In this game you have to make a mature decision every now and then, but not that often.”

Is Jim Kelly the best quarterback in pro ball? He's the best the USFL has produced, but what does that mean?

“I think that if I were starting a team right now and just picking sides with no league or offense or coach or anything, I'd have to choose Jim first,” says Bennett. “If nothing else, you're going to excite all the people.”

Pardee also gives Kelly the nod. “As far as arm, temperament and leadership, he's it,” says the coach. “Bill Walsh can argue that, and so can Shula. But take something like our 'bubble' route, a simple pass that's hard to defend. It's like a tricky layup. Jim was close to 100 percent on those patterns last year. Didn't miss any. And he has to throw on fields with high crowns like this (Giants Stadium) downhill to those little 145-pound guys. That's passing touch.”

“He's also got phenomenal anticipation and reading ability,” says offensive coordinator Jenkins. “But his will to win eclipses even those things. His ability to be the best under adverse conditions -- he's the best example of that I can think of.”

“He could be one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL right now -- he's got everything you're looking for,” says Dick Coury, the former coach of the USFL's Boston-New Orleans-Portland Breakers franchise and now the quarterback coach of the Los Angeles Rams. “He has a quick release and has such a strong arm. And he can throw on the run as well as in the pocket. He doesn't hesitate in running and does a good job. But when he moves around, he wants to throw.

“Kelly can also throw all the balls an offense requires. He can take something off his ball if he needs to. He can be a touch passer and throw deep like Marino. When Mouse Davis left (Houston), he still could run that run-and- shoot offense. But I really feel he could run any type of offense, be a pocket passer or blend into a rollout offense.”

Coury compares Kelly with Marino and San Diego's Dan Fouts in the durability department: “You hit Jim, he gets right back up about as well as anybody I've % seen. He appears to be a real good leader, too.”

Coury, in fact, believes that Kelly shares many of Marino's strong points. “I'd rate them pretty evenly, but right behind Fouts. If I had to choose a No. 1 quarterback right now, I'd take Fouts. Mainly, I know Dan better. Dan has everything. The difference between the two (Fouts/Kelly) is pretty much development. Dan has just made a lot more throws and learned how to cope with varied defenses. Kelly is certain to improve with experience. There's no question he's more advanced than a lot of NFL quarterbacks because he's been throwing about 40 passes a game for two years.”

Frank Kush, the coach of the Arizona Outlaws of the USFL and the former coach of the Colts, says, “Talk about the mechanical things -- Kelly is as sound as anybody I've seen, almost unlimited in the things he can do. . . . I would compare him closely with Dan Marino.”

Gil Brandt, the Dallas Cowboys scouting director, grants much of the above and says Kelly “could take an NFL team to the playoffs, just going by what we saw in college.” But Kelly's USFL stats are harder to interpret. “We drafted a couple of big players from the USFL, and they didn't do a thing for us,” says Brandt. “There aren't many linebackers or defensive backs over there. It's like the old AFL, where the offenses always dominated.”

“He's faced good corners and burned them all,” counters Jenkins with a trace of irritation. “People with little knowledge forget that he may have better protection and better receivers in the NFL. It's all relative.”

Bennett counters with this extra zinger: “He's doing it all on a wing and a prayer right now. If he ever got serious about lifting and conditioning, they'd have to outlaw him. Run a mile? He'll take you to court over it.”

And what do the reigning NFL leaders think? Dan Marino has never seen Kelly play and has no opinion. Joe Montana has never seen him play but says diplomatically, “All indications are that he's an outstanding quarterback.” McMahon has seen him play a couple of times, has even hoisted a few glasses with him, and says, “He's big, he's got a good arm, he's making some cash. He could be All-Pro in this league. Anybody could, if they get in the right offense.”

McMahon and Kelly were together one late night in New Orleans before this year's Super Bowl. “Yeah, we had a good time,” recalls McMahon. “We were on a balcony off Bourbon Street, pelting the crowd with oranges. He shouldn't have any problems in this league. He's got a good attitude.” Kelly remembers being with McMahon, too, and being impressed that here was the soon to-be Super Bowl winning quarterback out with a Rolling Stone magazine reporter in the French Quarter till 4 a.m. Friday.

“He's crazy,” says Kelly. “It's no act. But he knows when to get serious.”

And when is that?

“Right before you get on the field, right before you step into the limelight,” Kelly says. “My time is coming. I can't wait.”

Issue date: July 21, 1986

 

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